Teachers ordered to close Facebook and Bebo accounts to spare blushes

In the public eye: Teachers have been told to shut down their social networking pages

Teachers have been told they should shut down their social networking pages to save them from potential embarrassment after a headmistress boasted about the size of her breasts on Facebook.

The new rules - which also affect non-teaching staff at the schools concerned - prevent them from having profiles on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter.

Education chiefs have sent letters to all school staff in Kent warning them to close their personal social networking profiles immediately.

The move follows criticism of headmistress Belinda Langley-Bliss's Facebook page - on which she posted a photograph with a caption boasting about the size of her breasts - after she sent 61 pupils home from Wilmington Enterprise College for breaking rules about uniform.

The letter has this week been sent to school staff in Kent by Simon Webb, Kent County Council children's services officer.

He warned that staff posting information and pictures on the social networking sites run particular risks because users do not have full control of what appears on their pages or who may see them.

His letter reads: 'These conditions, which all these 'providers' confirm, [say] that the individual has no ownership of the written content or any photographs which may be posted within the page.

'I would urge and recommend and individual member of staff to either close any personal accounts or secure them (not a reliable option) to safeguard themselves against future hacking or abuse.'

The warning follows criticism of headmistress Belinda Langley-Bliss, who posted these pictures of herself - and a boast about her breast size - on Facebook

A spokesman for the National Union of Teachers today backed the new ruling.

John Walder, secretary of the NUT's Kent division, said: 'I may be a boring old man of a certain generation, but my belief is that if teachers are going to have something to do with Facebook, they should at all times remember they are vulnerable if they put anything on there they don't want their students or their students' parents to see.

'I disapprove of people's private lives being dug up, but if you put your private life into the public domain you've only got yourself to blame.'

As well as carrying her boast about her breast size, Mrs Langley-Bliss's Facebook page carried an image of a monkey performing a lewd act and a joke about asylum seekers, both posted by other people.

One photograph showed her in a pub and another revealed that despite her stringency over smartness as an adult, she had been a scruffy pupil.

To the anger of the children she had sent home for breaking uniform rules, the 1989 picture showed her with sleeves rolled up, her hair in a quiff and her tie sticking out from the back of her collar.